Novorossiysk Buys Rest of Baltic Stevedore, Seeking More Assets

 

Maria Kolesnikova 
 

OAO Novorissiysk Commercial Sea Port, Russia's largest port by cargo volume, bought complete control of Baltic Stevedore Co. and said it plans to buy more assets in the northwest of the country to offer its clients more options.

 
Novorissiysk, in the south of the country, bought the 50 percent of Baltic Stevedore, a container operator, it didn't already own for $10.8 million. It will spend about $65 million to expand the company's capacity 10-fold by 2010, from 30,000 twenty-foot equivalent units in 2006, Novorossiysk Vice President Alexander Rybin said by telephone today.

 
``Northwest expansion will give synergies to our clients, such as metals companies,'' Rybin said. The port is in talks to buy other stevedore assets in the northwest, he said without elaborating.

 
The government has urged ports to expand so that the nation can handle all its own exports. About a fifth of Russian cargo is handled outside the country because of a shortage of port capacity. Billionaires Alexander Ponomarenko and Alexander Skorobogatko own 50 percent of Novorissiysk.

 
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in Moscow at mkolesnikova@bloomberg.net.